Frank Stallone’s closing song Peace in Our Life is mocked as a weak imitation of Springsteen. — Bill Simmons
No Best Needle Drop is selected. A new Frank Stallone Award for Worst Needle Drop is proposed for inclusion in the category list, while his Staying Alive song gets qualified praise. — Bill Simmons
No Best Needle Drop is selected. A new Frank Stallone Award for Worst Needle Drop is proposed for inclusion in the category list, while his Staying Alive song gets qualified praise. — Bill Simmons
Period-marker candidates include Martin Kove, Berkoff, the Frank Stallone ending and asking whether they can win this time. Kove is preferred from that list; the rescued prisoner asking the year is also offered. The transcript renders the year inconsistently. — Kyle Brandt
A proposed comic beat would let the rescued prisoner ask what he missed, including Jaws and Red Sox and Celtics results. — Bill Simmons
The rock-breaking prison opening establishes the mission quickly, delivers an immediate explosion and ends with the question about getting to win this time; Rambo’s immaculate hair is enjoyed. — Bill Simmons
The airplane jump mishap is enjoyed for forcing Rambo to cut away his equipment and for the reaction shots, while the failure to deploy an elite soldier properly is mocked. — Kyle Brandt
The meeting with Murdock and Erickson is added to the rewatchable-scene candidates. — Bill Simmons
The boat conversation with Co is enjoyed as awkward romantic comedy: becoming war, being expendable, the lucky knife and his interest in her necklace. — Bill Simmons
The boat ambush and escape are enjoyed, especially Co greeting Rambo and telling him he is not expendable; the hosts connect the wording jokingly to The Expendables. — Bill Simmons
The aborted helicopter rescue and ensuing Trautman–Murdock confrontation are praised. A proposal to strand an injured Trautman with Rambo is rejected because his return confrontation is needed. — Bill Simmons
The electrical torture and radio threat to Murdock are praised, including the perfectly timed lightning. The captors are faulted for leaving Rambo unrestrained and insufficiently guarded. — Kyle Brandt
The kiss before Co’s death provokes jokes about Rambo’s hygiene after captivity; Schwarzenegger’s resistance to romance scenes in Predator and Commando is contrasted with Stallone’s embrace of them. — Kyle Brandt
The revenge montage is praised first for the mud-wall reveal, then its peak is revised to the exploding-arrow kill. The soldier repeatedly missing is compared to Charles Smith failing to score against Chicago and to the UHF parody. — Bill Simmons
The slow-motion escape, emergence from beneath the helicopter, helicopter attack and gratuitous Stallone screams are celebrated. The hosts imitate the distinctive Stallone and Schwarzenegger vocalizations. — Kyle Brandt
Rambo destroying Murdock’s office and firing into the air is singled out as the best five seconds; he ultimately places the knife beside Murdock instead of killing him. — Bill Simmons
The closing patriotic exchange with Trautman and Frank Stallone’s Peace in Our Life are mocked, with the song characterized as a weak Springsteen imitation. — Bill Simmons
A rewatch with a son produced similar objections to the melancholy closing songs of both First Blood films; Rambo walking off to nowhere is mocked. — Bill Simmons
The murder montage, particularly the mud-wall reveal, is the final Most Rewatchable Scene choice; it is compared to a slasher film and an intensified First Blood sequence. — Kyle Brandt
The beach embrace, lost surprise, racial framing, Pushing, Rocky’s ingratitude, Paulie, the Rocky II recap, Mickey’s sudden Jewish history, and fight realism draw criticism.
Staying Alive is horrible but welcome; its first five minutes are among the funniest of the 80s and it is too different to ruin the original. — Bill Simmons
Stallone bumping into Travolta in a redone opening shows he couldn't resist putting himself in the film he directed; Frank Stallone is mentioned. — Bill Simmons
Donna Pescow was really good but Angie, co-starring the Airplane lead, never took off, and she became a character actress, later on The Sopranos. — Bill Simmons
Nobody wears a seatbelt, and a childhood bench-seat crash put one participant through the windshield. — Bill Simmons
The acting; the crawling monkey fighter; the reporter plot; the 'On My Own' moping montage; the chase with Forrest Whitaker; Ray Jackson's lack of MMA skills; young Frank's accent; Ray Jackson harassing the woman on the train
The acting was mentioned first; the crawling monkey fighter is problematic now, loved for years before anyone thought twice; his low, hopping style got him to the semis but is like small ball or the James Harden one-on-five: a surprise at first, scouted by the later rounds, unable to work over a seven-game series.
The torch-holding islanders in the opening show the film was written by white guys who, asked what they knew about this, said make them a monkey; it is called really bad.
The reporter plot has aged worst in parts: going undercover basically as a call girl and sleeping with a subject is very bad, part of a seventies-eighties trope of how to get the female reporter in, as in The A Team; the making-of says they wanted the action movie everyone liked in the eighties with a little romance added, so the writers gave the reporter a thing for Jean-Claude.
Two tough minutes after Ray Jackson's injury have Jean-Claude moping around Hong Kong to a song going 'on my own, I can be strong', worse than Frank Stallone, but it leads to the split on a balcony around the fifteenth floor with no ropes or harness, a pretty great shot Scorsese would approve of in a terribly acted and probably directed movie.
The lame chase is a fall from grace for Forrest Whitaker, the star linebacker of Fast Times who now cannot run through Hong Kong; his IMDb run from 1985 to 1988 is read out: Vision Quest, The Fall Guy, Diff'rent Strokes, North and South, Amazing Stories, The Color of Money, Platoon, Stakeout, Good Morning Vietnam, Bloodsport and Bird, several Oscar-nominated films with Bloodsport thrown in; he later popped up in Species.
Whitaker is respected for securing the bag, or for simply wanting to do things that sound cool, like a sex alien movie after a Vietnam picture; he eventually won an Oscar playing Amin (transcribed 'D.D. Amin') and carries Phone Booth with Colin Farrell; told there was an Oscar winner in this movie, nobody would have picked Jean-Claude or Gibb, and the actress might have been the guess; Whitaker is definitely mailing it in here.
Ray Jackson's MMA skills have aged badly since he does no MMA at all, more a Chuck Liddell knock-you-out-or-get-knocked-out fighter; young Frank's accent and acting feel like a head-shot pick with $1,200 left in the budget, and his father has a totally different accent.
Final answer: the monkey guy and the reporter; Ray Jackson sexually harassing the woman on the train, trapping her in her seat with his gigantic leg while Jean-Claude looks on amused, is also recalled as very dumb.
The acting is named first as what aged worst, before the discussion returns to aged best.
